[Ambulatory manometry].

Abstract

Dynamic manometry is a new technique which allows an esophageal or gastrointestinal motility recording by means of a portable recorder for a period of 24 hours. It consists of a probe with microtransducers to pick up the pressure variations of the gut lumen and a portable recorder where the pressure signals are amplified and are recorded in analogic or digital form. At the end of the examination the manometric data are transferred in the memory of a computer which afterwards provides analysis, visualization and printing of the tracing. In some system the pressure parameters are automatically calculated (mean frequency, amplitude, duration and propagation of waves, Motility Index, ect) for each period of observation (interdigestive and digestive, diurnal and nocturnal, etc). The ideal equipment, unfortunately, is not available at the moment and some of those commercially available may have particular advantages that others do not and vice versa. In this respect some economic and technical considerations should be made, ranging from their high cost to the vulnerability of some of their components, difficulty in recording the sphincter activity, unreliability incompleteness or excessive complexity of some software etc. However, the main difference of dynamic against stationary manometry consists of the fact that gut motor activity is recorded in a patient not lying in a hospital bed but during the normal life activity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)